In January 2015 Jillian Fink filed for divorce from Patrick Dempsey. Nearly a year and a half later it appears the couple is fully reconciled and ready to move on together.

Rumour has it that Patrick Dempsey was fired from Grey’s Anatomy because of an inappropriate relationship with a female staff member. Show runner Shonda Rhimes was reportedly less than pleased and wrote Patrick off the show herself, which ended in one of the most beloved character’s on the series death.

Rochelle Parker Patrick’s first wife

One is inclined to believe that Patrick has become rather full of himself, but last year’s events certainly put him back into his place. After all, they nearly cost him his marriage.

But let’s take a step back. Patrick Dempsey was actually married before he met his second wife Jillian. At the tender age of 21 he married his manager Rochelle Parker. She also happened to be the mother of Patrick’s best friend and was more than twice his age. Surprisingly the marriage lasted 7 years before it ended in divorce. Whilst we can’t know for sure what caused the divorce, the age difference may have caught up with the couple in the end.

Apparently the divorce left scars on Patrick’s heart, because he never wanted to go through another one. He probably didn’t think that it would ever come to that again, but that it nearly did seems to have been his own fault.

Patrick married his second wife Jillian Fink in 1999. Whilst he was an established actor at the time, it was a while before he became McDreamy and established his career for good. Incidentally, his television alter ego also married twice, divorced once and had to fight for his second marriage.

In real life Patrick and Jillian seemed to be happy for the longest time. They welcomed their daughter in 2002 and had twin sons in 2007. Patrick always spoke lovingly about his wife, crediting her with making him pursue his dreams, in particular his dream to drive race cars.

But in January last year Jillian filed for divorce citing irreconcilable differences. Rumours of troubles on the set of Grey’s Anatomy had already made the rounds and chances are that there was enough truth to his alleged affair to prompt his wife into action.

Fans were surprised. Even shortly before the divorce was announced the couple seemed to be on good terms, at least on social media. But so-called insiders were later cited as not having been surprised at all. Some said that the separation had been a long time coming and that the couple had been leading separate lives for quite some time.

Whilst we know that Jillian asked for joint legal and physical custody, child support, spousal support and that Patrick should pay her legal fees, we don’t know what date had been given as the date of separation in her filing. That means there is no official confirmation that Patrick and Jillian had indeed lived separately for some time already.

But we can safely deduce that Patrick was working more on his career and pursuing his racing than he was a husband and father for a significant amount of time.

Jillian Fink Patrick’s second wife

After it was announced that the couple would divorce, Patrick was frequently spotted out alone, still wearing his wedding ring. Then his iconic character died on screen and nobody talked much about his personal life for some time. Eventually, however, after many months, Patrick showed up in public again and his estranged wife was by his side.

The rumour mill went wild once more and there was much speculation going on. Were they back together? Was reconciliation in the cards? Was it simply a sign of an amicable divorce?

Later we learned that the couple had attended intense couple’s therapy and that Patrick had pretty much worked most of the year to get his wife back. He had reportedly been devastated at the prospect of losing his wife and his family and was finally ready to make an effort.

By now the couple and their children have been on multiple family vacations together and Patrick publicly stated that things were good between him and his wife. He said that he had to put in a lot of work and that he had to make sacrifices, namely scaling back on his racing career.

He admitted that he wanted to spend more time with his wife, but that he also wanted to be there for his children, who are growing up too quickly. Acting and racing had taken him away from his family too much and it had become unsustainable. It’s safe to say that Patrick had become pretty selfish about everything he wanted and because he was everyone’s darling, he paid no heed to the needs of his wife or family.

It took the threat of a second divorce for him to finally become more grounded again.

Recently it was reported that Jillian had been asked by the responsible judge to provide further documents regarding her divorce or it would get thrown out. Whilst it has been said numerous times in previous months that Jillian was about to withdraw the divorce filing, that has apparently not happened yet.

For now Patrick and Jillian are reunited and one can only hope that Patrick has learned his lesson. Clearly he knows what he has to lose, if he doesn’t pay enough attention to his wife and children.